Brain Talk: Wie wir das Gehirn nutzen, um uns selbst und andere besser zu verstehen

by David Schnarch, Tara Christopeit (Translator)

Have you ever done something you knew would make someone else happy, sad or angry? Have you ever bought a thoughtful gift for someone you love? Or realized someone was being sarcastic with you? Or enjoyed someone else’s misfortune? These everyday events involve mind mapping, your brain’s ability to create mental pictures of how someone else’s mind works. Mind mapping underlies all aspects of daily life, from the best to the worst. You won’t find an aspect of your life where mind mapping isn’t involved—and you probably never heard about mind mapping before!
Brain Talk offers what you need to know about mind mapping and the emerging brain science of interpersonal neurobiology (how interacting with other people affects your brain). Brain Talk is written for the general public in an easy-to-read style and establishes a personal relationship with you. It creates vivid pictures in your mind with attention-grabbling examples, and walks you into powerful new insights about yourself and the important people in your life. Reading Brain Talk can be a life-changing experience.
• Part One explains mind mapping and increases your ability to “read” people and map their minds (and your own). It helps you know what they want, what they’re feeling and thinking, and what they’re likely to do. Part One also covers mind masking (shielding your mind from being mapped), lying and deception. Brain Talk revolutionizes your understandings of yourself, your spouse or romantic partner, and your children, parents, siblings, and coworkers.
• Part Two explores the darker aspects of mind mapping, like traumatic mind mapping and antisocial empathy.Traumatic mind mapping occurs when mapping some else’s mind leaves your brain/mind traumatized. Did you grow up in a troubled home with experiences that produced vivid “flashbulb memories” lingering in your mind? Do you have recurring thoughts about someone you’re dealing with who does disturbing things? Brain Talk helps you understand subtle interpersonal trauma and reveals the short- and long-term negative impacts of traumatic mind mapping.
• Part Three shows you how to repair the negative impacts of traumatic mind mapping and effectively handle the difficult people in your life. Brain Talk also details how to use mind mapping to create positive healthy interactions with those you love, and ends on an uplifting note. Brain Talk is based on Crucible® Neurobiological Therapy, developed through fifteen years of clinical research with highly troubled clients.
Brain Talk is also a crossover book for therapists, educators, and avid readers of brain science.
• Four Appendices contain the scientific research underlying the main text and offer in-depth discussions of important topics and treatment details (over 100 pages and 400 references).

Brain Talk is available in three versions: paperback and TWO Kindle versions (Standard and Professional). Brain Talk Professional Edition offers the additional functionality of directly downloading FREE scientific brain research articles published online. Consider this electronic edition if you a mental health professional, academic, graduate student, or die-hard brain wonk.

Brain Talk is written by the award-winning clinical psychologist, Dr. David Schnarch, renowned relationship expert and author of the international best-selling books, Passionate Marriage and Intimacy & Desire. He has a proven track record for creating innovative therapies, and making complex brain science understandable and useful to the general public. His ground-breaking professional contributions have received awards from the American Psychological Association, the American Assn. for Marriage and Family Therapy, and the American Assn. of Sex Educators, Counselors, and Therapists.

Genres: Psychology, Relationships, Nonfiction, Self Help

687 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 16, 2020

About the author

David Schnarch is a licensed clinical psychologist, certified sex therapist, and author of numerous books and articles on intimacy, sexuality, and relationships. He is the Director of the Crucible® Institute and his work has attracted clients and students from across the globe. His book Passionate Marriage is a perennial bestseller, offering the general public his revolutionary approach in a pragmatic and easy-to-understand form.

Reviews

[Keith Wilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Helping Brains Talk to One Another

Here’s something that’ll surprise you. Other people know you better than you know yourself.

It surprised you, didn’t it? That just goes to show that people can predict how you’ll feel.

Upon that counterintuitive claim rests David Schnarch’s new book, Brain Talk: How Mind Mapping Brain Science Can Change Your Life & Everyone in It. Shaky ground, if you ask me. We all have our blind spots; but, there’s no way anyone, even your best bud, knows you like you do. Schnarch goes through considerable pains to say that introspection, observing your own thoughts and behaviors, is rife with errors. True enough; but knowing the mind of others would be rife with those same errors.

The ability to know other people’s minds is normally called having a theory of mind. It’s called having a theory for a reason; but Schnarch likes to call it Mind Mapping. There’s a big difference between calling something a map and calling it a theory. Having a map is much more authoritative than having a theory; it shows Schnarch’s confidence in the accuracy of extrospection.

Schnarch is a moderately well-known psychologist and author of Passionate Marriage and Intimacy & Desire, as well as his long-standing war against attachment theory. Schnarch wants everyone to grow up and take care of themselves. He believes the desire for attachment and affirmation keeps us immature. I’m with him on that, except to say that there’s some days I just want my blankey.

Brain Talk talks about one thing your brain is very busy doing all the time: sizing people up, imagining what they’re thinking, guessing what they want, and predicting what they’ll do. The evolutionary benefits of performing this well are obvious, and you do it very well, says Schnarch; most of the time. You’re able to do this very early on, by age four; but you do it better to the degree you’re grown up and can look at others objectively. It’s one of those skills that, the less you need it, the less dependent you are on others, the better you are at it.

Having argued for the robustness of human mind mapping ability in the first seven chapters, Schnarch goes on in the next four to describe how it can be impaired by trauma. Trauma in the general sense. When you’re hurt by someone you love, the impulse is to believe they didn’t mean to do what they did, or had good intentions, or were focused on something else. You don’t like to believe someone who’s supposed to love you purposely dismissed your feelings. You make excuses for them or turn a blind eye to the fact. Often, the furthest you’ll get towards believing a loved one has ill intent is to say you’re confused. You believe that, by not acknowledging the evil they did, you are preserving the relationship.

This is what causes you to have your trauma repeated, again and again. Because you’re unwilling to admit the person you love did evil, you develop a blind spot to that evil. In case you ever wondered why people stay with their abusers, or find another one when they have finally gotten rid of the one they had, this is why.

Here’s where Schnarch goes to war against attachment theory, which says maintaining a secure attachment is primary. Get real he says. Sometimes people are evil; and because it’s possible to know the mind of others, these evil people know what they’re doing to you. Look evil in the eye and call it what it is if you want to preserve your ability to map minds.

Brain Talk gives you step-by-step instructions on how to do just that, involving visualization of the traumatic incident, imaginative dialogue with the offender, and, for the truly brave, interacting directly with destructive people. These are highly irresponsible instructions, the equivalent to a surgeon teaching people to perform an appendectomy on themselves. There are many people who cannot cope with those images that Schnarch wants them to visualize without doing something destructive. Please proceed with caution if you drink too much, take lots of drugs, fly into rages, cut yourself, attempt suicide, or do your own evil in response to the evil others do to you. Maybe you shouldn’t work at removing that blind spot yet. Unfortunately, you’re the type who needs to most of all. I would urge you to get out of those habits first. Look at the evil you are doing before you try to recognize it in others; not because it’s the right thing to do, although it is; but because it’s the smart thing to do, for your own sake.

The end of the book contains some hefty appendices that seem to be designed to cower opponents with technical language about neurology. I would skip them unless you have neurological training and know what he’s talking about. If you want to learn about neurology, read about it from someone who doesn’t have something to prove.

For all my criticisms and snide comments, I consider myself half schnarched; to be more, would be less than fully individuated. I’ll gratefully use his step-by-step instructions and urge people to develop vision for their blind spots, as long as they don’t do evil to themselves or others in the process. However, I’ll never say other people may know you better than you know yourself, like I said at the start. The Self is seen though a glass darkly and is not fully knowable by anyone. You and others simply see different parts. Brain Talk will help you see the ugly parts of others better. If that’s not what you want, it may be what you need.

Keith Wilson writes on mental health and psychotherapy in his blog series, The Reflective Eclectic

[Mehtap exotiquetv · Rating 2 out of 5]

In diesem Buch berichtet Schnarch von Patientengesprächen und wie sie Aufschluss darauf geben, wie das menschliche Mindmapping (Theory of mind) funktioniert und wie man selbst traumatische Erlebnisse aufarbeiten kann.
Warum 2 Sterne? Der Autor nutzt sehr explizite Sprache, die an vielen Stellen extrem unangebracht waren. Meiner Meinung nach war das sehr geschmacklos, wie detailliert man von den traumatischen Erlebnissen der Patient:innen berichtet. Gerade für Menschen, die traumatische Erlebnisse hinter sich haben, kann das bestimmt sehr triggernd wirken, wenn der Autor detailliert über die Handlungen der sexuellen Ausbeutung spricht.
Das Buch hat einen neurowissenschaftlichen Anhang, die seine Aussagen wissenschaftlich stützen sollen. Grundsätzlich hat das Buch ein paar interessante Einsichten, wo man selbst über Gespräche mit den Familienmitgliedern reflektieren kann. Die Inhalte hätte man aber auch in 150 Seiten abfrühstücken können. War doch sehr langatmig.

[Stacey Aguilar · Rating 1 out of 5]

David Schnarch writes about well established things and simply re-named them.
Other known terms that are similar to his term “mind mapping” are: attunement, empathy, self awareness. The concept of mind mapping (creating a picture of what is happening in another person’s mind) is okay, but in reality it doesn’t necessarily create better relationships.
It leads us to project onto others, to assume, to judge.
This will never bring people closer or heal relationships. When has guessing *really* helped you?
It does not instruct us to ask questions about the other, enter into conversation, or connect with and meet needs that are actually stated aloud.

Brain Talk is wordy and over-explained, with unnecessary examples.
He goes out of his way to speak ill of some core theories (attachment theory) which is interesting. He also goes out of his way to speak ill of a number of theories in the field of psychology.
He also tells people how to go into themselves to do trauma work, and this may be *very dangerous* for certain people. It is far safer to do this with a therapist/psychologist who can help create a safe environment and assistant through the process.
If you look through reviews, most of the positive ones appear to be written by people who know him personally, and the less positive reviews are from either people in the field of psychology (meaning: they work with people’s minds every day) or who do not know him.
Another interesting experience was reading his intro. It appears that he may be on the spectrum of narcissistic personality disorder from the way he pushes himself and his material on readers even before they start reading.

[Jason Wu · Rating 5 out of 5]

A deeply wise and illuminating book. Life changing. Here’s 5 reasons why I recommend it:

1. BEEF UP ON THE LATEST ON BRAIN SCIENCE: Brain science has made many leaps in understanding and is continuing to change the way we think about how we make decisions, how our minds work and how we approach everything. If you’ve read Michael Lewis or Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking Fast & Slow with fascination - read this one too. It will blow your mind.

2. SPEND TIME WITH AN EXPERT IN HUMAN DYNAMICS AND INTERPERSONAL NEUROBIOLOGY: If you are interested in personal growth, leadership, what makes our most important relationships tick, the effect of trauma on our brains, how to counter the moves vicious people make on you, how we read each other, how we can better understand ourselves despite our blind spots, read this book.

“A line in the Talmud refutes Descartes’ belief that introspection is the key to self-knowledge. It says, ‘We don’t see the world as it is; we see the world as we are.’”

3. LEARN ABOUT THE WAYS OUR BRAINS ARE NOT ACTUALLY FIXED AND HARD-WIRED: if you’re interested in how we can heal, how to repair the negative impacts of trauma on the brain, and deal with difficult people in your life, you should read about neuroplasticity in Brain Talk.

“Neuroplasticity and neurogenesis are two good reasons to be hopeful about people’s ability to recover from trauma.”

4. READ STORIES ABOUT REAL PEOPLE RECOVERING FROM TRAUMA, FIGURING OUT THEIR LIVES AND BECOMING THEIR BEST SELVES: While this book will never make it to the popular self-help shelves of bookstores, Dr. Schnarch is not a researcher writing from an ivory tower; he helps real people in real time through his own neurobiological therapy approach. The book shows how he has used the latest breakthroughs and research in brain science to help real individuals and actual couples pick themselves up from trauma, give their dilemmas meaning, build resilience. He shares incredible, proven strategies and change-oriented interventions - what it really takes anyone who is living in the aftermath and seeking post-traumatic growth.

“When faced with other people’s disapproval - when they refuse to accept and validate you - that’s when you’re forced to relinquish their picture of you and hold on to your perception of yourself. That’s how you develop a solid sense of self.”

5. TAKE HOPE: Ultimately, Brain Talk tells how how trauma can bring out the best in us and lead to an increase in deep appreciation, personal agency, purpose, resilience and perspective.

[Meredithw7gmail.Com · Rating 5 out of 5]

Self-help for your brain

This book is so unique in that it is written for the brain to learn about itself. Really fascinating stuff. It is a bizarre, yet enlightening experience to feel the cognitive shifts take place in your mind as you digest the information and put together the mental images of its inner workings. Self-help has never been so concrete!

You will begin slowly overtime to piece together things that have seemed unsolvable for your entire life as your mind goes to work piecing together new truths about itself and the other minds around you.

I hope this information he has unearthed will become more mainstream someday. Thank you Doctor!

[E from WI · Rating 5 out of 5]

For me, this book helped clarify and catapult me further into healing from toxic parents. Dr. Schnarch has a way, often with stories that you can relate to, of explaining toxic parents and WHY most of us refuse to see how bad things are. And because of that blindness, we also refuse to see it in others, and we set ourselves up to repeat patterns or self abuse because we are truly blind to it.

My abuse was the invisible kind, no hitting, except with words and actions. They always knew to say the correct thing in front of others. Never getting too angry in public, but in private they were distant emotionally and totally focused on their own needs. But the jump I was afraid to make was that they THRIVED on emotionally abusing me and my sibling. They were wired to thrive on others pain. That is the piece none of us want to see, yet seeing it frees you from the "brain spaghetti" you get when you confront other people similar to them, or them as older adults.

This book will make you uncomfortable. It will make you question much of what you see around you (including our current President). It is a seminal work on childhood trauma and should not be missed if you are a therapist OR an adult suffering relationship issues, dependency issues or find yourself abusive to those you love. Run towards this book,, and re-read it over and over. Once you get it, you will look at the world differently and with much more understanding of yourself and others.

[Alisha Gagnon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is eye opening and has really changed the way I look at some of the relationships in my life! I have found myself with a greater understanding of mind mapping and find myself using it more regularly in my own life. It is a book I may have to read again, as I'm sure I will take something new from it each time I revisit.

[Lindsey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Brain Talk definitely opened my eyes to the prevalence and sinister nature of mind mapping, which occurs when a person is able to accurately pinpoint how another will react to certain words or scenarios, and use those things for the purpose of manipulation.

I won't lie, this was a difficult book to read -- not because it was convoluted or particularly lengthy, but because it presents some really difficult truths and seeks to expose the motives of our own loved ones, whom we naturally want to assume mean well. We often make excuses for those we love most when they treat us in hurtful ways, chalking their behavior up to a lack of knowledge or ignorance. In reality, if someone's words or actions hurt, they likely MEANT for that to be the case. This is true across relationships, even (disturbingly) in parent-child relationships.

I have been harmed by traumatic mind mapping and mind masking in my own life, so reading this book required me to do some work and take a long, hard look at previous interactions with loved ones that have been especially wounding. Healing from traumatic mind mapping involves returning to "the scene of the crime," visualizing the interactions as they occurred. It's not exactly for the faint of heart, but it is ultimately good for growth and moving forward.

I give Brain Talk 2/5 stars because I started to grow a little tired of reading about Schnarch's encounters with multiple patients (which made up the entire second half of the book), and their own traumatic mind mapping experiences. Many of the scenarios laid out were not relatable and, frankly, quite extreme; I didn't feel able to relate to them. Nevertheless, I still found this book to be informative and helpful.

☆☆/☆☆☆☆☆

[Caitlin Sticco · Rating 1 out of 5]

Godawful writing covering no new ground. Wish I had listened to other reviewers who said so. The best I can say is it's only mildly offensive in its sexism (filed with "wait, my husband knows what I'm thinking?" jokes) and the science isn't horribly inaccurate, just terribly written and dully repetative. Find a different book on the neurology and psychology of the theory of mind, which is what the entire rest of the scientific enterprise calls mind mapping.

[Meredith Gardner · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 stars. Valuable insights into mind mapping and psychology but was badly in need of an editor.

[Giulia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interessantes Thema und viel über den Umgang in Beziehungen gelernt. Deutsche Übersetzung nicht immer optimal.

[Karem · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best psychology book I have ever read